November 30, 2009: Mini-Garden Update

I've been a bit remiss in my blogging recently, as there really isn't a lot going on right now in my gardening world and my internet connection has been all but non-existent this past week.

The little salad garden is growing, albeit very slowly. The carrots are up, and germination looks to be very good. Some of the spinach has emerged, as have a couple of the twenty-five onions, and enough lettuce seedlings survived the (probable) bird attack that I will have plenty to transplant into the bare spots. I also have some lettuce seedlings growing in vermiculite, so hopefully I can replant the containers that have passed their prime.

My two Patio tomatoes suffered a lot of leaf miner damage, which I first misdiagnosed as bruised and damaged leaves from being mishandled in Lowe's nursery. It became apparent the damage was from leaf miners when I spotted the squiggles from their tunneling, so, scissors in hand, they were soon inspected and all damaged leaves removed to a sealed plastic bag. The larger of the two plants now has 13 tomatoes on it, the smaller one has a lot of blossoms. I have taken to tickling the opened blossoms with my electric toothbrush each day, in hopes of increasing their chances of pollination. Mr. H is still patiently moving the pots out in the mornings and back in at night. When, oh when, will he be rewarded with a ripe tomato?

About a week ago, I was contacted by Chelsea, of Hometown Seeds, with a request for a link to their website to be added to my sidebar. I've never ordered any seeds from them, but I looked over the website and it seems to be a nice family-type business that is just starting up, so I said I'd be happy to help them out. Today in the mail I received a "thank you" from Chelsea, and a sample of some of their seeds. I also found the link wasn't working, so I fixed it. I hope.

I was happy to see Shasta Daisy seeds among the collection. Before I had my main vegetable garden along the east fence, I had Shasta daisies and summer phlox, and they were so pretty! Unfortunately, my neighbor had Bermuda grass, which overtook the flower garden so badly I finally removed all the plants. Now the neighbor has a small garden area along the fence, where she keeps the Bermuda grass under control, so I'd like to reintroduce that strip of land to the daisies and phlox.

My flower garden of the past.

18 comments:

Tomatoes growing! I am so envious! Other than a few grape tomatoes I did not have the pleasure of eating a single garden fresh tomato this summer (late blight), The first time in 20+ years. Boo hoo. Oh well - next year.

Oh my, Maureen. You should have been my next door neighbor. I shared quite a few of the nearly 500 pounds of tomatoes I harvested! In fact, I'm surprised I wanted to grow more tomatoes this winter, by September I was wishing I'd never see another one.

Thomas, carrying the tomatoes in and out is about as close as Mr. H will ever get to "gardening". I wish you better luck with Marc ;-) I do think Mr. H might make it to the raspberry patch next summer. Something he can do standing up!

********Rachel, I killed most of my potted lettuce when I cut it back instead of just pinching off the outer leaves. It works in the garden, but it was too stressful for the potted plants.

EG, the prettiest little bird was scolding me from the tree branch over the garden this morning. I think he was upset that I'd covered his buffet with netting!

Remember, I had sparrows decapitate my peas and lettuce this spring. First time I'd ever had bird damage in my WA garden, too....other than robins in the strawberry patch years ago. Let's just say I'm a pretty good shot myself. even if I only used a BB gun ;-)

I've been wondering what you have been up to when I had not seen you on my blog roll for a while. Strange to see leaf miner on a tomato, I guess they eat what they can this time of year. The sun in your yard looks wonderful.

The winter garden is coming along very nicely. Those tomatoes are real eye candy this time of year for those of us that can only dream of next year's crop.

My husband is like Mr. H... helps out with things like lifting or a project constructing something ... but the gardening is pretty much left to me. I will say that he has taken a real interest in and ownership of the raspberry patch though.

KitsapFG, I can only hope Mr. H develops a passion for the raspberry patch. The last time I grew them he said they were a PITA and he pulled them out! I lost a 50-foot row of them :-( He's not that ambitious these days, LOL!

********Heskie, we've been toying with the idea of selling our winter home and hibernating up north through the winters. It's a hard decision...should we or should we not.

********Daphne, the rate that one plant is setting fruit, if they ever ripen we might get inundated! Doubtful I'll be canning any, though ;-)

********Dan, from what I've read, leaf miners in tomato crops are very common in the south. Never having seen it up north, I wasn't expecting it down here! I think they were infected in the nursery though, as the damage was all on old growth. I'm really watching the new growth for further infections. And the sunshine is wonderful! We sat outside most of the day yesterday. Well, Mr. H sat, I washed and hung out the laundry most of the afternoon.